her obsession is passion, he said.

Chelsea:

Way more accessible, until the confusion with names, with Jade, and the falling out of the story with the extended dialogue. No resolution there. But so many gorgeous sentences, interesting captures.

The last chance I have to teach you something.

May if I say passion. I have heard you mention, seems an obsession of yours.

There is a connection between passion and seduction.

Seduction of the reader is what I have been trying to teach you. With no reader, everything you write falls on... unread pages.

You can write a stunning sentence (I mean you, Chelsea, can write a stunning sentence, I have read them), and you can evoke, and you have a singular sound, but, so far, you write with too much disregard for your reader. Not so much with Darkness story, but with the last story. 

I'd like to posit that the passion you are letting rule your (writing) life right now is the passion of the young, the passion for self. But, thank god, with this piece, until the dialogue, not so much.

Of course it is not anyone's fault they are young. They just are. And so they proceed with the sensibilities of the young.

If you read any of my notes you would know that I understand you because I was once you, caring little for my reader. And you would have read that my transgression was much worse than yours - I didn't just ask a workshop of 11 peers and a teacher to read a ten page something that was opaque, impenetrable, inaccessible. I read a 10,000 word story without an ending to a very large room full of people - I took bits and pieces of their lives from them without offering anything in return. Or, even worse, I asked them to commit to something, to open their hearts to something, and then I yanked it away.

Yes, I know that place you are working from.

So, of course, you should keep writing. You will keep writing. You have a singular voice, as I think I mentioned in my first notes to you. And one day, one day, if you stay with it, I think you will start to care about your reader more than you care about yourself. And it will be glory. 

Let's hope. Best.

-

prior letter linked

-

This was nothing I had expected from him. I read it and still don't know if what I am seeing is what it is. But I will keep it for as long as I can. If anyone follows what I write, you may have read a post including two letters (one addressed to me and another addressed to the class about me). He said I was senseless, self-indulgent and that I didn't know how to write. After that day I have felt defeated, more than I have with writing before. Maybe it wasn't defeat, because I only tried to come back harder. But I suppose I just felt the exhaustion I have been dealing with. And I felt very small, like I have been dedicated to reading and writing this past year and have ultimately, wasted time and avoided what meant something. This isn't to say that is the case. It was just what I felt. I didn't know whether I should be looking at myself differently. What I ultimately turned in and which is what the above is a response to, came about in the instant or rather two different sittings. I was tired, anxious, sober. But I also tried to have fun. I wrote as a man. And I tried to be judgmental. Somehow - and it blows my mind - the dialogue was still considered dense, lyrical, accurate, vapid, Joycelike - even though I used words like "pussy" "prick" and "Winehouse". Was letting myself have a bit of delirious fun what worked in my favour? Was inventing story rather than translating my story what was appreciated? I don't know. It did shock me when my professor had responded so harshly to me. Shocked because I felt like he was always looking at me a certain way from across the table - looking at me like he understood. I began reading his notes, for the first time, last weekend. I thought they were gorgeous and daring. I wanted to quote him. I wanted this to be who I heard speak in class. I felt we shared something similar, and it made me nostalgic about a correspondence we never had and an inspiration that I never received from him. It is a Graduate class I am taking and he had been a student at my dream school. I wanted to look up to him. But I felt like he hated what I did, what I thought, my sensibility. I would do anything to have him meet me half way, help me break through where I am getting held up. I wish I had been able to finish the piece that was work-shopped, but there will be time. And I hope I will always find pleasure in the text. His letter does something to me - each one of them has - but I am not sure what. I hope in some life I will be remembered for my words. I hope I can continue on, become healthy, gain freedom from my body, so my hands can help others and my words can sound like they are coming from another's mouth. I feel for others - the other has always been my deepest concern, fascination, mystificatio and deceivance - but I know I am still so far from understanding their patterns. All the same, I am trying more everyday and I am learning, that it is true, not everyone has the same wants as I do at my core. We don't even all have morales. I assumed as much as I feared others assumed qualities about me. But it was the other who motivated me to overcome my disorders. I knew if I could forget my fears, I could hear other people and listen to them. I wanted to be less of a hypocrite. I wanted others to trust my sincerity. In this life, I hope I can do what one day he thinks I can: be here entirely for you.